Transit police union points to reduction in violent crime

James Watts, 94, alleges he was treated harshly by security officers when he had difficulty locating his transit pass.Photo by
Jenelle Schneider

The union representing transit police and TransLink security stood up Tuesday for its members, who have been under fire for both their budget and their behaviour — specifically three recent cases of misconduct.

David Black, president of Local 378 in the Canadian Office and Professional Employees Union, pointed to a 13.4-per-cent reduction in violent crime, according to a 2012 operational review by the Vancouver Police Department.

Property crime is down 2.3 per cent, fare enforcement is up and a study commissioned by TransLink found that people’s perception of safety and security on transit went up from 69 per cent to 80 per cent from 2009 to 2012.

‘SYSTEM IS NOT BROKEN’

“We don’t want to go back to where we were 10 years ago, where people were talking about the ‘Crime Train,'” said Black.

“The system is not broken, it needs to be tweaked and made a little bit more efficient and integrated,” he said.

James Watts, a 94-year-old Second World War veteran, isn’t as positive about TransLink’s security.

He called two TransLink security officers “overpaid crap” after they attempted to boot him from a bus on Granville Street near 11th Avenue around 12:45 p.m. Monday.

COMPLAINTS OF TREATMENT

The burly security men were checking fares and Watts mistakenly showed them his driver’s licence.

“He said, ‘If you don’t show your pass, you can get off the bus’,” recalled Watts, who was a bus driver for 27 years. “I’m 94 and I would like to sit down while I find my pass.”

That wasn’t good enough.

“He said, ‘You’re not going to sit down. If you carry on like this, I’m going to arrest you,’” said Watts.

“I couldn’t believe the treatment I got.”

As he was being taken off the bus, Watts found his pass and was allowed to remain on board.

It was then that the veteran of 34 flights over Europe as the tailgunner on a Lancaster bomber let fly with his "overpaid" epithet.

“I was annoyed,” said Watts.

WHERE WAS SECURITY?

So was Port Moody’s Louis Charland, who emailed The Province recently about the lack of security he experienced travelling home from Vancouver International Airport late Friday night on the Canada Line and then the Expo Line.

“At no time during this trip did I see any security or transit police even though this was late Friday night,” wrote Charland.

“I did, however, observe intimidation initiated by young and highly drunk individuals somehow needing to interact with the general public travelling on SkyTrain, shouting obscenities and challenging passengers.”

$27 MILLION BUDGET

The transit police force has an annual budget of $27 million. There is also a separate transit security force of 69 people with a budget of $6.4 million.

Last week, the Metro Vancouver Mayors’ Council on Transportation questioned the need for cash-strapped TransLink to be spending all that money on two levels of policing — especially with fare gates set to begin operating this year.

Fare evasion is by far the biggest single item enforced by transit police.

MORE THAN FARE EVASION

Transit police spokeswoman Anne Drennan said there were 51,180 fare evasion tickets written in 2012. But there were also 620 warrants executed and 883 arrests for infractions such as breach of probation.

In addition, transit police acted on 82 Immigration Act violations and did 1,892 “street checks” for things like drinking in public or smoking drugs.

There were a total of 18,255 files opened by the transit police, which would be a significant burden for the police in the region through which SkyTrain operates.

FEWER EVADERS

There were more fare checks in 2012 than 2011 but fewer evaders, according to TransLink spokesman Derek Zabel.

In the last quarter of 2012, there were 726,083 fare checks and 10,946 evasion tickets issued. There were fewer checks in the same period of 2011, 548,369, but there were 12,395 tickets issued.

Since legislative changes that went into effect Sept. 4, TransLink now gets the revenue from those evasion tickets.

But Zabel said only 18 per cent of those tickets have been paid, for revenue of $1.9 million.

Fines increase by $100 if unpaid after a year and ICBC can refuse to renew insurance for an outstanding ticket. Fare cheats who don’t drive can get chased by a collection agency, which gets 15.9 per cent of the fine for its efforts.

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